How much does Runway cost?

Verified July 2026: Standard $15/month (625 credits), Pro $35 (2,250), Max $95 (9,500), plus a free tier with 125 one-time credits. À-la-carte credits cost about $0.01 each and never expire.

How many credits does a second of Runway video cost?

About 12 credits per second on Gen-4.5 and about 6 on Gen-4 Turbo, derived from Runway's own published rate (625 credits = 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 or 104 of Turbo). Gen-4 images run about 8 credits each.

Do unused Runway credits carry over?

Monthly plan credits reset on your billing day and don't roll over — except on the Max tier, which banks them. Separately purchased credits never expire, which makes à-la-carte the safer buy for irregular schedules.

Is Runway free to use?

There's a free tier with 125 one-time credits — roughly 10 seconds of Gen-4.5 video — for checking output quality. It isn't a recurring monthly allowance.

Pricing/6 min

Runway Pricing (2026): $15 Buys 52 Seconds of Gen-4.5 — the Math

Runway's plans look cheap until you convert credits to seconds: the flagship model runs about 12 credits per second, so the $15 tier buys less than a minute of Gen-4.5 a month. The math, model by model.

By Vincent

Founder & lead tester

Updated Jul 19, 2026Target query: runway pricing

Direct answer

Runway's self-serve plans, verified July 2026: Free ($0 — 125 one-time credits), Standard ($15/month — 625 credits), Pro ($35 — 2,250) and Max ($95 — 9,500). What a credit buys comes from Runway's own exchange rate: 625 credits equal 52 seconds of Gen-4.5 video, 104 seconds of Gen-4 Turbo, or 78 Gen-4 images — about 12 credits per second on the flagship model. À-la-carte credits cost roughly $0.01 each and never expire; monthly plan credits reset each cycle, and only Max-tier credits roll over.

Last verified: Jul 19, 2026
Confidence: High — read on vendor pages
Evidence: 4 checks
Sources: 1 source links

Evidence used

Plan prices, credit pools and the 625-credit exchange rate were read on Runway's live pricing page (verified July 2026).
The rollover and purchased-credit rules come from Runway's help center (verified Jul 13, 2026).
Per-second and per-minute figures are pure division from the published exchange rate.
This is a third-party explainer; Runway's live pages are the authority and can change — exact costs show at generation time.

How we checked this

Every figure links back to the vendor page it was read on; third-party models (Kling, Seedance) draw from the same pool at their own rates, which we don't estimate.

Full testing method About ToolProven Affiliate disclosure

Runway plans at a glance (verified Jul 2026)

Plan	Price	Credits	≈ Gen-4.5 video / month	Rollover
Free	$0	125 (one-time)	≈ 10 seconds, once	—
Standard	$15/mo	625/mo	≈ 52 seconds	No — resets each cycle
Pro	$35/mo	2,250/mo	≈ 3.1 minutes	No — resets each cycle
Max	$95/mo	9,500/mo	≈ 13 minutes	Yes

Seconds are Runway's own published conversion (625 credits = 52s Gen-4.5 / 104s Gen-4 Turbo / 78 Gen-4 images). Monthly credits reset each cycle; only Max rolls over; purchased à-la-carte credits (~$0.01 each) never expire.

The credit math: 12 credits per flagship second

Runway's only published exchange rate is Standard's plan copy — 625 credits = 52 seconds of Gen-4.5, 104 of Gen-4 Turbo, or 78 Gen-4 images. That fixes the rates: ~12 credits per second on Gen-4.5, ~6 on Turbo, ~8 per image.

Convert the plans and the scale becomes clear: Standard's $15 buys 52 seconds of flagship video a month, Pro's $35 about three minutes, Max's $95 about thirteen. For drafting, Gen-4 Turbo halves the burn. Every re-generation bills again, so budget on your retake rate — three takes of a 10-second clip is 360 credits, over half of Standard's month. Run any amount through our [Runway credits calculator](/tools/runway-credits-calculator), which includes a what-common-jobs-cost table.

Third-party models complicate the pool: Kling and Seedance draw from the same credits at their own rates, so the pool drains at different speeds depending on what you run — Runway shows the exact cost at generation time.

Hidden costs and gotchas

Three rules move real cost: monthly plan credits reset each cycle (no rollover below Max); à-la-carte credits (~$0.01 each) never expire and are often the better buy for bursty use; and accidental annual subscriptions have a 30-day unused-refund window.

The rollover asymmetry is the planning trap — a quiet month on Standard or Pro simply forfeits its credits, while [only Max banks them](/blog/runway-credits-rollover). If your output is bursty, buying credits à la carte (they never expire) can beat a bigger subscription. The exit rules have their own catch, covered in our [Runway refund explainer](/blog/runway-refund-policy): consumed credits are non-refundable, but an unused annual subscription can be refunded within 30 days — the fix for the accidental-annual toggle.

The free tier is a taste, not a trial month: 125 credits once — about 10 seconds of Gen-4.5 — enough to check output quality on one prompt, not to evaluate a workflow. For where Runway fits against the video field, see the [Runway review](/reviews/runway).